D&D General D&D Book Prices Are Going Up

WotC announced today that D&D books will be increasing in price this year.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be $59.99 as a preorder and $69.99 thereafter. These will apparently come as physical and digital bundles, so you won’t need to buy the D&D Beyond version separately.

This space is dedicated to communicating clearly and transparently with our players- even when the topic isn’t particularly fun. Since the release of the 2014 D&D core rulebooks, we’ve kept book prices stable. Unfortunately, with the cost of goods and shipping continually increasing, we’ve finally had to make the decision to increase the price of our new release print books. We're committed to creating high-quality products that deliver great value to our players and must increase our prices to accomplish that.

This will go into effect starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants and new releases after Glory of the Giants. Digital pricing is unaffected by this MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) increase, as digital products don’t need to be printed or shipped. The increase also doesn’t impact backlist titles. While we can’t promise that there will never be a change to the prices of digital products and backlist titles, we have no plans to increase either.

Players who purchase the Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants digital-physical bundle through Dungeons & Dragons store can get the bundle for $59.95 for the entire preorder window, which is consistent with our current digital-physical bundle pricing. After the preorder window closes, digital-physical bundle prices will go to $69.95.

 

[mamba]

Even just in the U.S., the average salary for someone with a high school degree and no college degree is 30k a year.

that feels a tad low, but again, that is basically the lowest step on the ladder. I do not consider the average of the lowest end to be where ‘good’ starts, certainly not without context about the person this is supposed to qualify as good for.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Except that the wages don't exist in a vacuum.

There are high wages in Southern California but there are also very high housing prices.

There are dirt cheap housing prices in the rural Midwest, but I'd also have to take a big pay cut to live there.

So that $36k in rural Virginia (where I have lived and worked) is a good wage in many communities (not Blacksburg or Charlottesville, but certainly Pulaski County or Dumfries), but it is also unsustainable in the counties bordering DC, where housing and transportation costs are much, much higher.

I live in Mass and rent is damn near impossible here

 

[Oofta]

Correction, its called Greedflation and its a huge scam.

Looking for any excuse at all to hate on WOTC? How is raising prices after nearly a decade in any way shape or form greedflation? There are plenty of examples out there of greedflation, this isn't one of them.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Looking for any excuse at all to hate on WOTC? How is raising prices after nearly a decade in any way shape or form greedflation? There are plenty of examples out there of greedflation, this isn't one of them.

I call it like I see it. Honestly it was over priced already, especially for the increasingly subpar offerings.

And the any excuse at all to hate on WotC is BS.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Eventually its going to stop and whole thing will come crashing down on WotC.

I really dislike Chris Cocks' Leadership.

You and me both.

I live in Virginia and the average warehouse pay at their facility here is $18/hour or just over $36k/year. That is the same, or more than, the typical pay for a 1st year teacher or police officer. It is also a good wage for anywhere in the state, other than maybe the DC suburbs. Starting pay is lower than the average, of course. Virginia also has a higher state minimum than the federal minimum, at $12/hour, and increasing each year until it reaches $15/hour in 2026.

That is definitely more than I thought that Amazon paid. My longest-term employee gets a lot more than that, but the others are actually around there, give or take. So I stand (somewhat) corrected! At any rate, I think one might assume that working at a Comic and Game store would be really minimum-level pay, and it's not, when it's run correctly.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

You're not only playing d&d at this point but BUYING WotC books? What do they have to do to get you to stop at this point, burn down the entire Amazon rainforest?

Make something I don’t enjoy.

 

[Parmandur]

that feels a tad low, but again, that is basically the lowest step on the ladder. I do not consider the average of the lowest end to be where ‘good’ starts, certainly not without context about the person this is supposed to qualify as good for.

That's about 28% of the population, huge numbers of people are masking a living at thst rate.

 

[Parmandur]

You and me both.



That is definitely more than I thought that Amazon paid. My longest-term employee gets a lot more than that, but the others are actually around there, give or take. So I stand (somewhat) corrected! At any rate, I think one might assume that working at a Comic and Game store would be really minimum-level pay, and it's not, when it's run correctly.

Yeah, Amazon pays well, the issue is more the grueling and intense work conditions. A lot of people put up with the conditions for pay rate.

 

[Parmandur]

Make something I don’t enjoy.

For teal, WotC isn't my friend, and I'm not making charitable donations to them. If they make something I like, I buy it. If they don't, I don't.

 

[Oofta]

I call it like I see it. Honestly it was over priced already, especially for the increasingly subpar offerings.

Other companies would charge far more for their books if they could. It was mentioned above that one of the 3PP thinks a reasonable price would be $100. Whether you personally care for the books is not relevant, plenty of people buy the books.

And the any excuse at all to hate on WotC is BS.

You think the quality of the books is poor and that charging more for any book is greedflation. Why is WOTC miraculously immune to inflation? That $50 from 2014 would be the equivalent of $64 in today's dollar. I call your opinion like I see it.